Week 9 QB projections   •  SD Stats

QB Philip Rivers, San Diego Chargers

HT: 6-5, WT: 228, Born: 12-8-1981, College: North Carolina State, Drafted: Round 1, Pick 4

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Stats and Week 9 Projection

WK	OPP	RES	CMP	ATT	PYD	Y/A	PTD	INT	RSH	YD	Y/R	TD	FPT
6	vs DEN	L, 23-34	20	33	274	8.3	1	0	1	1	1.0	0	19
7	at KC	W, 37-7	18	30	268	8.9	3	0	2	18	9.0	0	30
8	vs OAK	W, 24-16	16	25	249	10.0	1	1	4	-2	-0.5	0	15
SEASON TOTAL			142	238	2036	8.6	11	4	14	32	2.3	1	158
9	at NYG	PROJ	18	29	250	8.6	1.6	0.6	2	7	3.5	0	20

Week 9 Injury Status and Other News

He was not listed on Friday's official injury report.

Week 9 Matchup Info

at New York Giants (Great matchup) - Philip Rivers has the Chargers' pass attack going strong entering week nine, with 54/88 for 791 yards, five TDs and just one interception thrown over the past four weeks (three games) - the Chargers have won two straight games over divisional rivals Kansas City (37-7) and Oakland (24-16). Vincent Jackson (12 targets for 8/103/1); Malcolm Floyd (4 for 2/64/0) and Antonio Gates (6 for 3/49/0) led the team in receiving last week - Rivers cruised to 16/25 for 249 yards, one TD and one interception vs. the Raiders.

Meanwhile, the Giants have dropped three games straight, with an embarrassing 17/23 for 211 yards, three TDs and zero interceptions allowed to Donovan McNabb and company last week. 'We keep talking about 'Well, that team ain't better than us. We just didn't play good,'' said Giants DE Justin Tuck after the Giants' 17-40 humiliation by Philadelphia. 'After three weeks in a row, something is not clicking the way it needs to be. We've got to look ourselves in the mirror and get this ship right. Now.' Over the past four weeks, the Giants average 212.75 passing yards allowed per game, and they have given up the most total points of any team during that span of time, with 119 - to put that number in context, consider that Oakland has allowed 115 points through four games in that time frame, while St. Louis has coughed up 113 through four contests during those weeks. Yeah, the Giants' defense has been awful of late.

Rivers and company are hot, while the Giants' pass defense is coming apart at the seams - advantage, San Diego.

Game Summaries

Week 1 at OAK - Rivers had a rough night because Oakland's pass rush was relentless, and his offensive line, which didn't seem up to the task, suffered two injuries to two starters. If they had suffered a third, the team would have had to go to an emergency offensive lineman. He did have some short fields in the first half, but Ladainian Tomlinson fumbled away one drive and finished the other with a TD. Rivers came alive in the second half after his interception ended a drive into Oakland territory. He leaned on favorite targets Antonio Gates and Vincent Jackson, and emerging weapons Darren Sproles and Legedu Naanee as the Chargers and Raiders traded punches to the very end. The Chargers are turning into a pass first team because that is the strength of their offense, so Rivers is still a top fantasy option at QB despite his middling stat line.

Week 2 vs BAL - Going into the game, Philip Rivers knew that 40% of his offensive line was making their first career NFL start. So he was probably as surprised as anyone when he finished the game with a career-high 436 yards passing. Rivers completed four passes of 35 yards or more, including an 81 yard touchdown to Darren Sproles on which the pass was thrown about 20 yards and Sproles did the rest. San Diego receivers are so big that Rivers knows he mostly needs to just get the ball down the field and more often than not it'll be caught. Still, Rivers did the bulk of the work on most of the big plays. He was under intense pressure all day long from the Baltimore defensive front, but never backed down. Amazingly, his stats could have been even better had it not been for Vincent Jackson being tackled at the one yard line after a long catch. Jackson more than made up for that later with a long touchdown grab, which was one of the best passes of Rivers career. He perfectly placed the ball deep downfield between three defenders to really the only spot Jackson could've made the play, and he did. There were two turnovers on Rivers' ledger -- one was a play on which he was just trying to throw the ball away, but didn't see a defender lurking in the area. On the other, Chris Chambers appeared to have been interfered with before the ball popped off his arms, but no flag was thrown and the deflection was snagged by Baltimore for the INT. One other note on Rivers is that he appeared to be getting checked out on the sideline for a possible lower body injury, and then later was seen flexing his hand repeatedly on the field. He never came out of the game.

Week 3 vs MIA - Rivers was up and down in the game, probably mostly due to the fact that they had zero success running the ball. Since Miami knew the Chargers couldn't run, they applied a ton of pressure on Rivers and beat him up repeatedly. That especially hurt San Diego in the red zone, as they had to settle for three short field goals (after four short ones a week ago). They'll need to do a better job of getting into the end zone in future weeks if they hope to establish any kind of offensive rhythm. Rivers appeared to be shaken up as he was hit on a deep ball incompletion to Chris Chambers, and late coming out of the locker room for the second half. Billy Volek warmed up, but Rivers was able to make it back out. Not only did he make it back out, but he made two perfect passes on deep balls, one to Malcom Floyd down the seam and one to Vincent Jackson to beat two defenders to a similar spot. About the only blemishes on his game were an early fumble inside his own 20 yard line, something he couldn't do much about because of how quick the pressure got there, and another late pass that was nearly intercepted by DE Jason Taylor for what would've been an easy pick-6 if he could have gotten his hands up sooner. But Rivers made up for those mistakes with some very quick recognition during a keeper run he took up the middle completely untouched for his first rushing touchdown of the season.

Week 4 at PIT - It was a tale of two-half's for Rivers on Sunday night. The first half was marred by inaccurate throws made under duress and a lack of offensive flow, Rivers was simply not able to keep the SD offense on the field much in the 1st half due to the Steelers solid coverage (of Antonio Gates in particular) and Pitt's dominance of the clock. This largely continued into the 2nd half, however due to the Steelers huge lead the opportunities for intermediate underneath routes were increased mid-way through the 3rd quarter. Rivers took full advantage of this hitting Antonio Gates with a short TD throw over the middle late in the 3rd. Rivers attempted to lead the Chargers to a late comeback victory by throwing two more TD's in the 4th, another to Gates and one to Chris Chambers. The comeback effort was brought to a halt when he fumbled on San Diego's final drive. Overall it was a mixed bag for Rivers on the night, however he was able to rack up some nice numbers when the team went into all-out passing mode in the 2nd half. As we know playing from way behind sometimes has it's value in the world of fantasy football.

Week 6 vs DEN - Rivers is always fired up to play the Broncos, and even got into a shouting match with the opposition before the game started. Denver sent many blitzes after Rivers throughout the game. At one point in the first quarter the Broncos had blitzed on 7 of 8 plays. Rivers did a good job of locating safety Brian Dawkins on the field and would regulary audible away from the blitz. He also did a good job of finding his hot read while the pressure was on. Rivers stood strong in the pocket early, and was even jumping slightly as he threw to get the ball over the oncoming rush. When the Broncos were in a base defense Rivers usually made them pay. The Chargers used screen passes, draw plays, traps, and shovel passes to try and keep the Broncos pass rush in check but by the end of the game the blitz finally got to Rivers. With pressure right in his face Rivers tried to find his receivers, but the Broncos were on him too quickly. The ultimate competitor, Rivers went down swinging but it wasn't enough for the Chargers to win the game.

Week 7 at KC - Rivers was pretty much on-point for the entire game. A lot of that had to do with the fact that he was given loads of time to work with. Unlike last week, when he was sacked five times in a loss to Denver, this week he wasn't sacked once. It showed in his aggressiveness and the confidence he showed on each throw, directing his receivers around the field and stepping into each throw without fear of being hit. He even managed to scramble for an 11-yard first down run! His first touchdown pass to Malcom Floyd was a simple matter of Floyd selling the corner fade fake and coming back on the slant for the easy score. Rivers' second score wasn't so easy, as he had to wait for Vincent Jackson to come back towards him off his route and fire a strike in front of the defender (which he did). The third score was a simple swing pass in the flat to Darren Sproles, who did the rest of the work himself by racing around and through a handful of Chiefs defenders to all but end the game. In addition to those, Rivers had a couple other near-misses, one of which was a dropped score by WR Chris Chambers and another to TE Antonio Gates that he was unable to hold onto while maintaining his footing inbounds. Gates had another reception that he took down to the two yard line, and Jackson had another that he nearly hauled in but came down about a foot out of bounds. So Rivers' day could have been even bigger than it already was. In fact, Jackson's second of two long receptions could've also gone for a longer pass and a score, but the pass was slightly underthrown and "only" went for a 51-yard pass.

Week 8 vs OAK - Rivers has a built-in advantage of knowing that if he throws up a jump ball to his receivers, more often than not they're going to come down with the football. His first pass of the game was one such play, a 53 yard bomb to Malcom Floyd that he went up and snagged out of the air over Michael Huff. Rivers from that point forward stepped into each throw with confidence, was given plenty of time by his line, and was pretty much on-point en route to a 9-9 start. He did throw an interception that wasn't really his fault (it bounced off the hands of Vincent Jackson), but he did later find Jackson wide open in the end zone for a score as Rivers continually threw it to him. Rivers also had a stretch that saw him go just 1-6, as his timing was off and his passes were sailing. The Chargers were about to punt once more when Chris Chambers came up with a huge reception on third and ten to pick up 20 yards and pretty much seal the win away.